The black, downward pointing triangle was the Nazi concentration camp symbol and insignia for lesbians, prostitutes, pacifists, vagrants and beggars (aka Germany's homeless at the time), alcoholics, drug addicts, asocial/antisocial types, and the mentally ill. I'm re-appropriating the downward pointing black triangle, as someone who has now spent 15-16 years homeless. I worked as a taxi driver and restaurant worker for about 7 years while fully homeless (and living in my taxi). The other years I've been blogging like crazy, and doing my Sharpie artwork, trying to turn that into viable living. I'm taking a negative symbol, and now using it as a symbol for promoting art, creativity, and making cool shit in today's world.
A few years back, while writing a blog post, I think, it occurred to me that "most progress in the world comes from the freaks, geeks, dorks, and weirdos." They make the art, the music, come up with new ideas and inventions, and create new businesses. Those are the people I most readily identify with.
The White Bear, is my nickname, which comes from a poem I wrote after getting dumped by my girlfriend in 1988. I published the poem in my first zine of poetry, called We're on the same Mental Plane... and it's Crashing, in 1992. I was living in Chris Moeller's tiny "Winnebago" apartment on Alabama Street, in Huntington Beach, at the time. S&M Bikes was run out of the single car garage at the back of the apartment then. Chris started making fun of me, calling me The White Bear, and the nickname stuck as my nickname among BMXers (except in the P.O.W. House, where they called me Sluggo). So I took The White Bear as my poetry pen name, and now use it on my main blog and my Substack site.
The lighter black square around the bear's head is there because I hand drew the bear, and the black didn't match the black of the triangle, because I suck at graphic design. So I just left it.
So that's what my logo is, and how I cam up with it. Stickers and a zine coming... some day.
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